By Karen Hall

Editor

A man who has been in the U.S. illegally for over 20 years will be deported after serving six months of a six-year sentence for child abuse.

Gabriel Enciso Rios, 31, formerly of Woodlawn Avenue, made an open plea of guilty to the charge of child abuse. In February he beat his seven-year-old daughter with a belt (or an electrical cord) because she had been naughty at school and at home.

"I understand what I done was wrong," Rios stated to Crystal Gray for the pre-sentence report. "I was trying to teach my daughter a lesson."

"He was quite excessive in his discipline," said Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell, calling it "an enormous tragedy" that Rios and his daughter, who is a U.S. citizen, are now separated. Rios has had sole custody of the child since she was nine months old.

According to documents in his case file, Rios was born in Palmar Chico, Amatepec, Mexico, and moved to Houston, Texas, in the early '90s. He moved to Tennessee with his brother in November 1997 to look for work. From May 2009 until he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Sept. 18, Rios was employed at Nichirin, making $13.30 per hour.

"He's done pretty well today," said Russell at the end of Rios' lengthy sentencing hearing. "If he comes back and gets caught, he'll be serving that sentence."

Also sentenced on Nov. 1 was Jerry Lee Talley, 38, of Petersburg, who was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He made an open plea of guilty to the lesser charge of assault, and was sentenced to 11 months and 29 days in the county jail, of which he must serve 75 percent, or about nine months, before being released. He must also pay $601.50 court costs.

According to documents in the case file, Talley was intoxicated when he shot a boy at point-blank range with a pellet rifle. Talley's teenage victim was "very lucky," according to the doctor who treated him at Lincoln Medical Center: the pellet entered his left rib cage and was embedded in the tissue wall next to his spleen.

"I'm just sorry for what happened," Talley said in court. "I never meant to hurt the boy. I'm sorry for all of it."

"This man has two problems: temper and alcohol," said Russell.

"He has a third one," said Assistant District Attorney Eddie Barnard. "He's assaulted people before. He's a mean drunk, and he doesn't seem to learn from past experiences."

"My client said it was an accident, and it was an accident," said Talley's attorney, Ray Fraley Jr. of Fayetteville.

Also pleading guilty was David G. Adams, 29, of Belfast Farmington Road, who was charged with three counts of aggravated statutory rape.

"I wish it never happened," said Adams to Terrence Howard of the Board of Probation and Parole who prepared the pre-sentence report. "I really don't care to talk about it."

Adams is a 2002 graduate of Marshall County High School who has a wife and three children. He has no felony convictions, but Adams' criminal record includes what Russell called "some serious misdemeanors," such as five domestic assaults.

Russell noted Adams' "lack of potential for rehabilitation" and called him "a poor candidate for alternative sentencing," before giving him an effective sentence of seven years, of which Adams must serve 30 percent before being eligible for a parole board hearing.

Adams had been free on bond, but after being sentenced he was handcuffed and led away to jail.